OTTAWA— Canada’s aboriginal leaders are urging Prime Minister Stephen Harper to meet with them later this month, in part to help end some hunger strikes and calm rising tensions — but the native chief drawing international attention for her hunger strike near Parliament Hill says she won’t stop unless a summit is held much sooner.

On Thursday, Harper’s office didn’t say if the prime minister would accept the invitation from the Assembly of First Nations National Chief Shawn Atleo to meet with chiefs Jan. 24. A spokesman for Harper said the prime minister “will reply to Chief Atleo in due course” and “remains willing to work with the First Nations leadership to deliver better outcomes for First Nations communities.”

Chief Theresa Spence has been protesting since Dec. 11 and has vowed not to eat solid food until she gets a meeting with Harper. A spokesman for Spence said the promise of a meeting wasn’t good enough and that she wanted an immediate meeting between Harper and national chiefs, not one as late as Jan. 24.

Even if a meeting takes place, it isn’t clear whether that would address concerns from Idle No More, the movement which has seen aboriginal and non-aboriginals demonstrate at home and abroad voicing displeasure with what they feel is a government that hasn’t addressed First Nations issues in a meaningful matter. The movement’s founders say the traditional native leadership doesn’t speak for them.

Experts say the growth of the movement, with demonstrations expanding in Canada and taking place overseas, suggests that it has moved beyond the ability of First Nations chiefs and the federal government to address before it spirals out of control.

“The larger chess board is a complicated one where both sides have to watch what moves to take. This is really an issue that could very quickly escape the control of First Nations leadership and the prime minister,” said Maxwell Cameron, director of the Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions at the University of British Columbia.

Near the middle of the chess board is Spence, who has spent her days in a teepee on Victoria Island, a small piece of Algonquin territory nestled between Ottawa and Gatineau, Que. A long lineup of people waited in sub-zero temperatures and falling snow to talk with Spence on Thursday, including opposition MPs.

Assembly of First Nations National Chief Shawn Atleo visited Spence as well on Thursday, the 10th day he has visited.

Spence has survived on water, fish broth, medicinal tea and some vitamins. An elder from Manitoba, Raymond Robinson, has also given up solid food for the last 24 days and joined Spence in Ottawa this week. Neither will eat solid food until a meeting takes place with Harper (Spence has rejected offers to meet with Aboriginal Affairs Minister John Duncan).

“She’s pretty adamant about that. She’s not going to stop the fast until they have the meeting, not announce the meeting,” said Cynthia Wesley-Esquimaux, the Nexen chair in aboriginal leadership from the University of Toronto, who visited Spence with Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett. “The 24th is too far into the future for her to hold on.”

Spence’s spokespeople said Wednesday in a written statement that the situation “is becoming more volatile” with each passing day that Harper doesn’t meet with Spence, the chief of Attawapiskat, a small reserve in northern Ontario. The statement added that chiefs who met in Ottawa last week plan to launch “countrywide economic disturbances” by the middle of the month if Spence’s request for a face-to-face with Harper went unanswered. In response, the government said it wanted to see an end to “illegal blockades” and expected “the rule of law to be upheld.”

Blockades of rail lines have taken place in Ontario, B.C. and Quebec under the Idle No More banner, and border blockades are being called for on social media.

“Since December 16th, we’ve seen increased awareness, attention but also escalation in terms of protests as well as the weakening health of Chief Spence and others including Elder Raymond Robinson (an elder from Cross Lake, Manitoba) undertaking hunger strikes,” Atleo wrote in his invitation to Gov. Gen. David Johnston and Harper.

“Immediate acceptance of this urgent invitation will, both respond to the health of Chief Spence and Raymond Robinson and enable those currently demonstrating for such a meeting the opportunity to return to their communities and to their responsibilities. Importantly, we can then support and enable focused dialogue and work led by each First Nation, within every treaty area on the matters of greatest importance.”

Native chiefs are scheduled to meet on Jan. 24, the anniversary of a landmark Crown-First Nations gathering last year. The location and final invite list hasn’t been set, but the meeting will mark one year since a 2012 summit in which Johnston, Harper and First Nations chiefs met in Ottawa to review treaty obligations, and come up with a governance and funding plan for aboriginal communities.

A spokeswoman for Johnston said Rideau Hall received the invitation and “a reply will be shared” with the AFN “in due course.”

The focus of Idle No More began with opposition to bill C-45, the government’s omnibus budget bill, which makes changes to environmental laws as well as changes to the Indian Act. The changes to the Indian Act would allow aboriginal people to lease their land to non-natives through a community vote.

Critics say those changes violate treaty rights, while the government argues the changes are designed to help reserve finances.